Toronto Men Too Bashful to Wear Stylish Clothing by Pedro Mendes

This title is taken from a 1938 Toronto Daily Star headline, bemoaning the lack of daring in local menswear. In fact, a direct line can be drawn connecting the city’s social conservatism in the first half of the Twentieth Century with the unwillingness of its men to be progressive in their dress.

From Edwardian styles, through the post-war period, the Roaring Twenties and the 1930s—the “Golden Age of Menswear” in other parts of the world—Toronto remained strict and conservative in its dress, echoing its religious and cultural severity of the time.

Drawing from the archives of Canada’s oldest custom tailor, Walter Beauchamp, Pedro Mendes will present an illustrated lecture on classic menswear in Toronto.